PARIS: Centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen held onto their lead as the frontrunners to narrowly beat other candidates in the first round of the presidential election, a Cevipof poll for Le Monde newspaper showed on Wednesday.
The two would make it to a run-off on May 7, with Macron seen as the likeliest eventual winner in the second round, but both candidates appeared to be losing steam in the last few days of a tightly-fought campaign ahead of the first April 23 ballot, according to the poll, based on a survey of 11,601 people.
Le Pen dropped by 2.5 percentage points to 22.5 percent of voting intentions since early April, and Macron fell 2 percentage points to 23 percent in the first round.
Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has surged to the fore in recent weeks, was clipping at their heels at 19 percent, the poll showed, while conservative leader Francois Fillon stood at 19.5 percent.
Le Pen would lose in the second round of voting against all three rival candidates.
Abstention, a key factor adding to uncertainty over the outcome of the first round, was seen coming in at 28 percent, Cevipof said.
That was in line with the record abstention level in the 2002 election, when far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the run-off before he was beaten by conservative Jacques Chirac.
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Macron, Le Pen cling on to first round lead in French election race — Le Monde/Cevipof poll
Macron, Le Pen cling on to first round lead in French election race — Le Monde/Cevipof poll
Russian strikes cut heating to thousands of buildings in Kyiv amid freezing cold
Russia launched a combined drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Tuesday, knocking out power and heating supplies to thousands of apartment buildings in Kyiv amid freezing temperatures, Ukrainian officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-story residential apartment buildings.
One person was wounded, debris damaged a school building, and water supplies were disrupted on the left bank of the city of more than 3 million people, he said.
Regional officials said one person was killed in attacks in the wider Kyiv region and two petrol stations damaged.
It was the second major attack on the energy sector and other critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital so far this month as temperatures hover well below zero Celsius.
“Thousands of houses are without heating in Kyiv at -15°C outside, following Russia’s mass strike overnight,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a message posted on X.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s barbaric strike this morning is a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos: support for the Ukrainian people is urgent.”
Sybiha reiterated the call for urgent additional energy assistance, air defense, and interceptors from Ukraine’s allies.
As the war with Russia approaches its four-year mark, diplomatic efforts to find a way to end the conflict have yielded no tangible results so far despite pressure from US President Donald Trump on both Kyiv and Moscow.
Kyiv has already been suffering from severe power and heating outages following previous strikes on the city earlier in January, and dozens of repair crews have worked around the clock for more than a week to restore supplies to residents.
Klitschko said that out of the buildings which were hit in the latest attack, 80 percent had already been struck in the previous attack.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.
Russian strikes also damaged energy and other critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy regions, Sybiha said.
In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a production facility was hit, and two people were wounded, officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-story residential apartment buildings.
One person was wounded, debris damaged a school building, and water supplies were disrupted on the left bank of the city of more than 3 million people, he said.
Regional officials said one person was killed in attacks in the wider Kyiv region and two petrol stations damaged.
It was the second major attack on the energy sector and other critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital so far this month as temperatures hover well below zero Celsius.
“Thousands of houses are without heating in Kyiv at -15°C outside, following Russia’s mass strike overnight,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a message posted on X.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s barbaric strike this morning is a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos: support for the Ukrainian people is urgent.”
Sybiha reiterated the call for urgent additional energy assistance, air defense, and interceptors from Ukraine’s allies.
As the war with Russia approaches its four-year mark, diplomatic efforts to find a way to end the conflict have yielded no tangible results so far despite pressure from US President Donald Trump on both Kyiv and Moscow.
Kyiv has already been suffering from severe power and heating outages following previous strikes on the city earlier in January, and dozens of repair crews have worked around the clock for more than a week to restore supplies to residents.
Klitschko said that out of the buildings which were hit in the latest attack, 80 percent had already been struck in the previous attack.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.
Russian strikes also damaged energy and other critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy regions, Sybiha said.
In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a production facility was hit, and two people were wounded, officials said.
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